Chelsea are apparently ready to make a “mystery signing” on the 1st of July, but the whole PR excercise looks primed to backfire.
The story comes from the Evening Standard, where Simon Johnson covers Chelsea regularly and with well-placed sources. There’s no question he has been told by someone at the club that this is the case, the only question is whether they told him with the intention of him spreading it like this.
Now we have a situation where July 1st has become fixed in the minds of Chelsea fans as the day that things will really kick off. But the reality is that unless there truly is some of superstar ready to join at the start of next month, it will end up being a disappointment.
Bakayoko and Lukaku are seen as done deals anyway, and far from unanimously popular ones. July 1st looks like an own goal already.
— Will Faulks (@willfaulks) June 17, 2017
According to Johnson’s pieces elsewhere on the site, Willy Cabellero is set to join the Blues on a free that day. Getting a backup goalkeeper on a free – and not a very good one at that – would be such a disappointing signing to announce after a month’s buildup that surely even Chelsea are aware of what a mistake it would be.
In that case, the two signings apparently close enough to completion to be considered realistic are Romelu Lukaku and Tiemoue Bakayoko. Both would be significantly more exciting than Caballero, but neither is universally wanted by Blues fans, and rumours about both moves have been continuing for so long that both feel like done deals and neither feels exciting or fresh.
It would be a good idea for CFC to cool down the hype-machine just a little, or risk the whole thing backfiring.
